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      Feminist foreign policy as ethical foreign policy? A care ethics perspective

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      Journal of International Political Theory
      SAGE Publications

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          Abstract

          This article argues that a liberal cosmopolitan approach to feminist foreign policy reproduces existing relations of power, including gender power relations and Western liberal modes of domination. I suggest that a critical feminist ethic of care offers a potentially radical and transformative account of ethics as a basis for a transnational feminism – one that reveals and troubles the binary gender norms that constitute the international and which exposes the ways in which patriarchal orders uphold political hierarchies that obstruct the building of empathy and repairing of relationship. To illustrate this argument, I address the recent diplomatic crises faced by Sweden and Canada in their relationships with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Policymakers and diplomats must aim to build understanding by recognizing the material and discursive factors that have constructed, over time, the relationships between Saudi Arabia and Sweden/Canada, as well as the ways in which patriarchal structures – across the globe and at multiple scales – hinder the possibility of attentive listening and connection across borders. It is only through the prism of this relationship – where difference takes on meaning – that the more complex role of Western states in the contemporary system of transnational militarism is revealed.

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          Philosophy and Real Politics

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            Manly States

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              Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy in the Making: Ethics, Politics, and Gender

              In 2015, the world's first self-defined feminist government was formed in Sweden with the explicit ambition of pursuing a feminist foreign policy. This essay seeks to unpack and highlight some of the substance and plausible future directions of a feminist foreign policy. The overarching ambition is three-fold: (1) to probe the normative contents of feminist foreign policy in theory and in practice; (2) to identify a number of potential challenges and ethical dilemmas that are detrimental to gender-sensitive global politics; and (3) to advance a research agenda that can deepen the normative and ethical notions of a feminist foreign policy. Sweden's feminist foreign policy is still in the making. Its conduct is mostly incremental and focused on international agenda setting and normative entrepreneurship, which is guided by an ethically informed framework of cosmopolitanism and human rights. Yet, this essay argues that this reorientation is distinct for two reasons: First, by adopting the “F-word” it elevates politics from a broadly consensual orientation of gender mainstreaming towards more controversial politics, which explicitly seeks to renegotiate and challenge power hierarchies and gendered institutions that hitherto defined global institutions and foreign and security policies. Second, it contains a normative reorientation of foreign policy, which is guided by an ethically informed framework based on broad cosmopolitan norms of global justice and peace. The article concludes by advancing a research agenda that draws upon feminist IR theory and enhances the ethical and transformative contents of the English School by making it more gender-sensitive and appropriate for the study of feminist foreign policy.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                (View ORCID Profile)
                Journal
                Journal of International Political Theory
                Journal of International Political Theory
                SAGE Publications
                1755-0882
                1755-1722
                February 2021
                February 25 2019
                February 2021
                : 17
                : 1
                : 20-37
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Carleton University, Canada
                Article
                10.1177/1755088219828768
                3bed9d81-331f-4fbc-ba80-7e7dca0d4e0a
                © 2021

                http://journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license

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